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So I was wondering if we knew if Talns Honorblade was stole by Nale. We know the the Shin have eight of them. Szeth has/had one before Kaladin took it and in turn was taken by Mr. T and given to Vyre. So is the missing Honorblade the one Nale has? Thai is what I assumed, I just want to know if if was correct.

I've spent the last few days on a Brandon theory binge, digesting as many fan theories, plot analyses and wild speculations as possible. After reading up someone's question on Hemalugy (Is Hemalugy the only end-negative magic system or are there more?) I realised that there is another use of magic which needs you to give more than you get, the Honorblades! From what we've seen the Blades work exactly like a Sprenblade would bestowing Surgebinding powers with 2 notable exceptions one, no Spren (and by extension no Shardplate) and also that a lot more Stormlight is required to power the same effects. This certainly sounds end-negative to me but I may be misunderstanding the meaning. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hello everyone. In this topic, I'd like to talk about the engineering principles behind Soulcasters, and to a lesser extent Regrowth fabrials and Honorblades. With Oathbringer, we finally have a PoV of someone using an actual Soulcaster, plus some interesting information in the Ars Arcanum and some further knowledge on the Honorblades. So with all that in mind, let's get to it. First, I'd like to talk about the actual composition of the Soulcasters. From Way of Kings, here is our first actual description of a Soulcaster. Soulcasting fabrials have some limitations that actual Knights Radiants Soulcasting don't seem to have. Not all Soulcasters are able to Soulcast every essence, as stated by Shallan here. In addition, Soulcasters are only able to Soulcast things into an essence that has a corresponding gemstone on the fabrial. Emeralds for food, smokestones for smoke, garnets for blood, etc. This is directly different from how Radiant Soulcasting seems to function, as Jasnah uses multiple essences in the battle for Thaylen city without any particular types of gemstones being noted as being drained. So what are Soulcasting fabrials doing? It appears they are giving limited access to the Transformation surge. It appears that, unlike Shardblades, they have no inherent primary user. It also appears that the process to Soulcast is something people get better with as time passes, but it has devastating side effects on those who use them. We have seen Soulcasters with granite casts to their skin, with vines growing from their eyes, and even those who are turning into smoke. All of these incidences have led me to the follow conclusion Conclusion: Soulcasting Fabrials create a weak approximation of a Nahel bond The only ways we have seen on Roshar to access the Surges are various bonds with the sentient Investiture that Rosharans call spren, by being directly Invested by a Shard (Fused), or by holding an Honorblade. We can cross being directly Invested off the list of potential ways Soulcasting fabrials allow access, as the people using them still require contact with the Soulcaster to use it. Likewise I believe we can cross off a bond with a spren, as while the Soulcasting savant feels a presence when she Soulcasts, she does not see anything, and she is far enough into Shadesmar that in my opinion spren should not be able to hide from her. That leaves the Honorblades. The Honorblades grant a link to two Surges to whomever touches them. We see this with Bridge 4 using Jezrien's Honorblade. In addition we see another similarity between the Honorblades and the Soulcasters: the color of the metal. I will concede that this is a tenuous connection, however: Honorblades appear to be physical manifestations of Honor's power, much like lerasium, atium, or ettmetal. The color of the metal could be an indication of a shared origin. Both seem to require large amounts of Stormlight to function. Both create a weak bond on touch, and require some time to learn how to use. Honorblades can be dismissed, while Soulcasters cannot, but that could be a property of Soulcasters not being intended as weapons. The link between the two is reinforced in the Ars Arcanum, where Khriss seems to think that Soulcasting fabrials, medallions on Scadrial, and Honorblades all work by similar principles. What I believe occurs in each case is that the possession of a medallion, Soulcaster, or Honorblade temporarily overwrites the person who is using it's Spiritweb to make them a temporary Metalborn or Surgebinder. In the case of medallions, we are shown that knowledge of what the medallion can do is necessary to unlock it's power. We see this with the weight medallions used in the airships and by the coin Wax acquired from Hoid. Soulcasters do not have this problem as most of Roshar knows what they are on sight, and Honorblades have been sequestered in Shinovar and seem to have been used for training Surgebinders for unknown purpose. Clearly the Shin know what the Honorblades do, and so the Intent is not a problem there either. This temporary overwrite causes problems for the recipients down the road, however, I think. In the case of Soulcasters and Honorblades, they are required to draw dangerous amounts of Investiture into their Spiritwebs, probably exacerbating any cracks already there and probably giving them an increased likelihood of savantism. Medallions likely don't have this problem as much because of the relatively limited amounts of Investiture in their use. Anyway, that's my current theory. What do you guys think?

I'm looking for some help on something that a friend noticed. So at the beginning of WOK, as far as I know, Taln had his Honorblade in Damnation (or however that works) and Szeth had Jezrien's. But when Taravangian tells Szeth that Kaladin must have one of the other Honorblades, to convince him that Kal isn't a surgebinder, my friend I just talked to says that Szeth replies with something like "One of the other seven?" which seems to imply that the Shin only had 8 total (and gave him one). I don't have any of my SA books with me right now, so I can't check any of this to be sure. How many blades do the Shin/Szeth have at the start of WOK, and if it's only 8 (including Jezrien's), do we know where the last one is?

So, I haven't done much research on this but I wanted your guys thoughts on where the other honorblades are. I know nine of the Heralds left theirs when the Oathpact was abandoned, with Taln keeping his. Szeth has an honorblade, Nale has his own (presumably) that he uses to hunt people bonded with spren, and Taln brought his own with him when he returned. Thats three of the ten, do the rest reside with the Shin? And if they do why are the Shin in control of 7 honorblades? Another thing on dawnshards, I was reading another thread about how the Parshendi could be dawnsingers due to their singing language and the fact they predate humans on Roshar (I think). If so could Eshonais shardblade be a dawnshard?

As honorblades can be used by anyone and give power to anyone, can we assume that honorblades work like the bands of mourning do, in the sense that anyone can use them because there is identity signature on them? If the answer is confirmed please post it. If not please post theories.

I haven't seen any good threads on this topic, so correct me if I'm wrong. In WoR Interlude 4, Eshonai indicates that one of the Honorblades, which was somehow in the possession of the Parshendi, was 'left' with the Alethi the night Gavilar was assassinated. Question #1: We know that the 9 Honorblades were left altogether by Jezrien and Kalak, where most were recovered by the Shin. It seems clear that no other peoples actually know the Shin have the Honorblades. So how in the world did the Parshendi get one? Particularly concerning their Voidbringer history at that time... I can only imagine, and this is a bit of a stretch, that it's related to the Parshendi's theorized connection to the Dysian Aimians. #2: If an Honorblade really was left that night...where is it now? It's possible they were just referring to Szeth's Blade, but that just seems like an obviously false lead to me since that was clearly given to him by the Shin, plus that wouldn't explain why the Shin only have 7 (8=Szeths, 9=Talns 10=Parshendi). Then the additional "stolen" one mentioned by Taravangian could be Nalan's. That's all a bit hazy to me. At one point I thought it could be Oathbringer, but I've mostly discarded that theory. I did think it could be with Jasnah, although she seemed to be very new to her Surgebinding at that time. But she seems one that might take off with it and not tell anyone about her newfound powers, plus she was the one that watched her father die and was there when they arrested and executed the Parshendi leaders. I imagine one of them would have had it. There's been no mention of Jasnah being a known Shardbearer, but I suppose if her family knew she bonded a Blade that night(thinking it an ordinary Shardblade), they might want it to be covert that she has one. She could be a false Elsecaller, or she could be a true Elsecaller with additional abilities granted by the Honorblade. Someone else. Perhaps it was added to the stash of King's Blades, which would be quite funny. I feel like I'm missing some important things here. Any thoughts?

So... I was wondering why Dalinar hears att scream when summoning the blade he took from Taln in order to pin Amaram down as a liar. When the Stormfather accepts his oath on top of Urithiru he (like Kaladin and Renaren) hears the scream of the dead spren of which it is "made" from (lacking a better word). But if it realy was a honorblade Dalinar was holding it should not have that effect on him. Kaladin, after picking up Szeth's honorblade, notes that he does not hear anything and remaks on it. Is the blade Taln carried att fake, did someone swap it- if so when, and who?

I suspect that when Radiants who have reached a certain degree of progress in the Nahel bond die, they go to Braize. Several points of evidence have led me to to suspect this: The Nahel bond was not designed by Honor, but was an attempt by the spren to imitate what Honor had given to the Heralds. In WoR chapter 87, Syl clarifies to Kaladin that the Nahel bond was specifically based on the Honorblades. The Prelude to the Stormlight Archive tells us that one of the conditions of the Oathpact is that the Heralds would return to Braize to be tortured if they died, and were expected to return willingly if they did not die during a Desolation. To abandon the Oathpact, they had to leave their Honorblades behind, willingly and intentionally giving them up. They did so by slamming the Blades into the stone ground. This suggests that the Honorblades was the basis of their connection to the Oathpact, and thereby to Braize. The coded passage from the Diagram found in the WoR Chapter 84 epigraph references "the secret that broke the Knights Radiant". Apparently there is such a secret, and obviously it would need to be a very significant one. When Dalinar observes the Recreance in his vision (WoK Chapter 52), he sees the Radiants slam their Blades into the stone ground, as the Heralds did, and as Dalinar does when he relinquishes Oathbringer to Sadeas. This is clearly how the Bond is broken, though why they needed to leave the Plate behind as well is unclear, mostly because we know so little about what Shardplate actually is and whether it has any connection at all to the Heralds (whom so far have never been shown wearing Plate of any kind). Nale believes, following Ishar, that when the proto-Radiants "naturally discover the greater power of the Oaths"..."without Honor to regulate this, there is a small chance that what comes next will allow the Voidbringers to again make the jump between worlds." (Edgedancer, Chapter 9) This suggests that the Radiants are connected in some way we do not yet understand to Braize, and could potentially (though by no means certainly) bring a Desolation the same way the Heralds do. Whether Ishar is correct in this belief or not is not yet known to us. To bring these points together, the Nahel bond is based on the Honorblades, and severed by the same means that the Heralds severed their ties to the Oathpact. Is it possible, then, that by copying the Honorblades, the Nahel spren inadvertently recreated the not-so-desirable aspect of the Honorblades that connects the Heralds to Braize? If so, it is possible that when Radiants die, their soul(?)/Cognitive shadow/non-material aspect goes to Braize, as the Heralds do, instead of going through the usual afterlife? This would be an extremely serious side-effect for the Nahel bond to have, and it's hard to imagine anyone, least of all the Radiants who were all broken people in some way, stoically accepting more-or-less-eternal torment after their death. As others have theorized, we already have reason to believe that the afterlife is messed up in some way on Roshar, but if the Radiants suddenly found out that they were more or less guaranteed to go to Damnation, that would go a long way toward explaining the Recreance.

WOR Ch. 42 Epigraph: And how, exactly, was Ishi going to do that? According to Syl, Honorblade Surgebinding is less efficient than normal. Taln displays more-than-human reflexes/speed, but Stormlight boosts your physical capability too. The Heralds must have had some really impressive powers unrelated to Surgebinding... with just the Bondsmith Honorblade (and the Bondsmiths probably aren't a primary battle Order) and super-reflexes, Ishi would have had trouble beating a single "battle Order" KR, much less all of them.

Hi everyone. I am new here so tell me if this theory has been proposed before I am reposting this from general Cosmere theories because I didn't realize it should go here. A couple WoB's: These are what first got me thinking that Honorblades might be some kind of spren. Kabsal refers to the Dawnsingers as spren who brought healing. So, Dawnsingers seem like a likely choice for honorblade-spren because: We know very little about them, so they could be virtually anything. Dawnsingers are probably powerful, because they are probably related to Dawnshards, which Honor views as vital against Odium. Heralds seem too weak- Nalan had a hard time catching Lift, an Edgedancer who had only sworn three oaths. They are seen as godlike figures and it would be a little dissapointing for these demigods to be about as powerful as a KR. I think that Nalan with his blade is like a former KR using a dead shardblade, only more powerful because it's a Herald and Honorblade. The parallel between the Recreance and the Heralds abandoning their oaths: they both left their weapons behind for no apparent reason. Unless something to do with the previous bond stopped them from using them right then. Of course, Nalan used his blade in Edgedancer, so this might be false or somehow wear off over time. I think that Kaladin said his father believed in the Almighty because the Heralds were said to have taught healing. This might just have been Vedel, Herald of Healing, but I will have to look at the exact quote to know for sure. I don't have the ebook copy so this will likely take awhile. Anyone who could give me this quote would be greatly appreciated. What do you think?

Not sure if something similar has been proposed before. When reading this thread, I started thinking about some things we know about the Heralds, the Honorblades, and the Nahel bond. Unlike normal shardblades, Honorblades don't seem to disappear if you drop them. (Presumably, you have to consciously unsummon it.) This can be seen when Taln collapses in the WoK epilogue, and when Szeth drops through the highstorm at the end of WoR. Taln's Honorblade was with him when he returned from Damnation. The Shin never had his blade. The other Heralds left their blades behind when they abandoned the Oathpact. These things seem to suggest that the Honorblades themselves are very much connected to their specific Heralds, but also the Oathpact itself. Taln's blade seems to have gone with him to Damnation when he died, and the Heralds who did not want to go back left their blades behind. Why would they do that? Was the Honorblade the thing that facilitated the Pact? We also know that the Nahel bond was an attempt by spren to copy what the Honorblades did. We've assumed this means giving access to stormlight and surges, but what if it went further than that? What if all Knights Radiant, by virtue of having a Nahel bond, were accidentally partially included in the Oathpact, in some way? What if any Knight who dies while still connected to their spren is sent to Damnation, to be tortured indefinitely? What if that revelation is what led to the Recreance? Who would want to continue being a Knight, if it meant eternal Damnation? There are some problems with this. For example, it doesn't explain why the existence of Surgebinders could lead to a new Desolation, which is something that many people (including one Herald) think. I would be surprised if the Recreance wasn't connected to that issue. Also, in the case of the Heralds, the Blade goes with them (or they go with the Blade), as a part of the Oathpact, according to this theory. However, we can be fairly certain that this is not true for the spren who create the bonds - they can be traumatized by the death of their Knight, but they aren't sent to Braize, and can rebond with someone else. This could just be explained by the fact that spren and Honorblades are different. Spren are alive, for one. A bit of a cop-out answer, but hey! Lastly, the Heralds return at every desolation, and no dead Knights do. And we have heard that keeping the Desolation at bay has been Taln's burden alone. If my theory is right, I think this can be explained by the fact that the Knights were never included in the Oathpact to begin with. Their inclusion is just accidental. That means that Odium has no obligation to fulfill his part of the bargain (whatever that means) with them. They are sent to Braize (because of the bond that imitates the Honorblades), but other than that, they don't affect the Desolations, they don't get to be sent back to Roshar, or anything. Just endless pain. On that cheery note, what are your thoughts?

1| page 1050 of the original WoR Kindle edition Kaladin arrives in Uruthiru with Szeth's Honorblade. As far as I know this scene is the last we see of the Honorblade. I am assuming Kaladin left the Honorblade with Dalinar which then leads me to the interesting tidbit - when the Stone Shamans learn of Szeth's "death" how will they go about recovering the Honorblade from Dalinar? Szeth mentioned at some point (forgot to mark the spot) that his people were not worried about recovering the blade after his death. Could this be a significant conflict in the coming third book? Will the Shin send powerful warriors wielding the other Honorblades? Silent assassins? Proto-radiants of some kind? 2| page 976 of the original WoR Kindle edition "Kaladin stood in the rain. “Do you know where the King’s Wit is?” “That fool, Dust? Not here, blessedly. Why?”" This scene is Kaladin speaking to Zahel while Kaladin is recovering from his injuries and wrestling with his conscience over the plot against Elhokar. Note how Zahel (Vasher) refers to Hoid as "Dust". Hoid and Vasher seem to have met in the past. The name "Dust" seems full of meaning but I cannot really think of what that meaning might be in relation to Nalthis or Roshar. Thoughts?

I'm rereading WoR, and I noticed something: It seems as if the Listeners have the Honorblades, except for Szeth's Blade. They likely use them for growing food, using Progression, but with the arrival of the voidforms, the ramifications are terrifying.

It's a pure theory, but... First, why give a Honorblade to somebody you are about to banish and sell into slavery? I think there are ten Stone Shamans (one for each of the Blades and one leader without one), and they're bonded with the Blades. And it would be against the rules to make Szeth give back his own. Also, if Szeth was a Stone Shaman, he probably had access to more knowledge and that's why he interpreted the facts and announced that Desolation is coming. That's why it was so terrible for all Shins, since one of their high priests had gone mad (or so they thought). So they made him a Truthless and they were waiting for this mechanism to kill him (since he was to be a slave, and slaves doesn't live long). They would reclaim his Blade when he would die, and choose another Stone Shaman. The problem was, that Truthless usually doesn't have Honorblades, so he survived, time and time again... until Kaladin happened. As for Nalan, maybe he considered them taking Honorblades a theft and killed the one who had his Blade, so he hadn't had any difficulties with reclaiming it. Maybe he considers Honorblades to obey only laws of Almighty, and He gave them to Heralds, so he is still working while obeying the law.

Honor’s exhortation to Dalinar to “Unite Them!” has many meanings. Unite the Knights, Unite Roshar’s peoples, etc. (Honor is the “binding” Shard.) The natural question is what will happen when that group IS “united”? I think the “them” to be united refers to the Heralds. The re-establishment of the KR will draw the Heralds to them. Why do I think the Heralds? Let’s look again at the WoK Chapter 9 Epigraph: “Ten people, with Shardblades alight, standing before a wall of black and white and red.” Though this refers to “Shardblades,” I think it really means Honorblades capable of consuming investiture. Herald unification enables them to combine all of their Surges and, perhaps together with the KR, re-form the “bonds that drive Roshar” (WoK Ars Arcanum). I envision the ten Heralds standing against the Voidbringers, Honorblades “alight,” sucking in vast amounts of investiture – and thereby stripping the Voidbringers of their Odiumspren. Violent Voidbringers will again become passive Parshendi, and the thunderclasts and Unmade will fall lifeless, their state before Odium invested in them. Unfortunately, the Honorblades consume ALL investiture. (See my theory of "investiture imbalance" as the cause of Desolations.) That means the Heralds’ souls and all spren, including the Radiantspren. Victory against Odium means the end of the spren. See ya, Syl! We barely knew ya…

My friend has a theory that if someone were to bond all ten Honorblades at once, they would become the Shard of Honor. Any thoughts on this?

So I was WoB hunting on Theoryland, and came upon this very nice one about Honourblades and Hoid: Now, we know that the Shardblades come from Spren, but also that the Spren that are Splinters of Honour copied the Heralds to make the KR. This means that there were the Spren before the Spren... We also know (but I can't find the WoB) that there were Adonalsium Spren left over on Roshar. (If anyone puts it up on here, I'll add it.) My theory is that Honour used them to make the Honourblades. Also, the fact that Hoid makes the distinction with this makes it important and quite resolute. Anyway, pretty straightforward. Thoughts?

“And the only sound that's left after the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row.” - Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row” THIS POST IS INTERPRETATION AND SPECULATION. PLEASE READ IT AS SUCH. Desolations are the critical narrative element of SLA, even more than the Highstorms Brandon based on Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. What are they, what causes them, what is their purpose, how do they begin, how do they end? I made an earlier attempt to answer and will now try again. Brandon seems fascinated by the question he has Kaladin ask: “Can you kill to protect?” Vin says that’s humankind’s nature: “Something that could both protect and destroy. Something that could destroy to protect.” (HoA, Tor Softcover, p. 711.) This theme informs my interpretation of Desolations. Because Desolations are so central, a proper exposition requires background and context. I’ve written a number of posts to provide this context, some of which are controversial. To summarize before proceeding: “The Origin of the Cosmere” presents my view that all Cosmere magic begins in the Cognitive Realm with a cognitive command of some sort. I later described unconscious healing as an example of the general rule. “The Shattering” asserts that Adonalsium was Shattered vertically, along the fault lines of each mandate (intent), rather than horizontally across the spectrum of powers. IOW, each Shard has the same powers; the only difference from Shard to Shard lying in the powers’ expression through each mandate. I identify each known “Mandate.” Honor is “Relationships.” Cultivation is “Survival.” Odium is “Aggression.” I’m not wedded to any of these words, although I’m comfortable with the latter two. I do think “Relationships” fits Honor both conceptually and in how I think Honor expresses his power, but the word itself stinks. I’m open to suggestions on that one… I describe the nature of spren and why Radiant spren enter the Physical Realm with sentience only and not sapience until they bond. I assert that Honor made the souls of the Heralds into “identity spren” implanted in the Honorblades. That post also claims the Honorblades are “Voidbinding fabrials” that cause the Heralds’ “torture.” Later I conclude that the Heralds’ souls/identity spren must bond with the Stone Shamans when they emerge in advance of a Desolation. I argue that the Nightwatcher is a cognitive prison for Odium, part of how he is entrapped on Roshar. I also argue that Stormlight consists of the investiture of all three Shards forged by the Honorblades, another part of his prison. And I argue that in Shadesmar thoughts can kill. I believe a Shard’s best and easiest tactic to kill another Shard is to destroy its mind, its ability to direct its power. I believe that’s what Odium did when he splintered Dominion, Devotion and Honor. I am still developing this argument. Below is a summary of my theory of Desolations, without textual citation. Originally this summary was the introduction of a longer essay. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I’ve now grown too weary to write it. But I didn’t want to deprive you folks of your regular target practice. So here it is, in bare form, weaving together the ideas generated in the above-cited posts. What Desolations are the wars between Honor/Cultivation surrogates and Odium surrogates. Voidbringers include anyone under Odium’s influence. That means listeners, thunderclasts, humans and others. I speculate Odium spren resurrect dead greatshells as thunderclasts and dead – and disturbed – listener remains as the “mindless” Unmade (so described by the Diagram). I’ve stated throughout my posts that Odium’s investiture doesn’t bond. How then does Odium exercise influence? WoB states Odium has found a “hole” to “pour” his investiture into (like Hamlet’s uncle poured poison into King Hamlet’s ear). This is different from actually bonding with the host. My analogy to explain the difference is this: place an electrode into an insect’s body. You can control the insect’s behavior through the electrode. But the electrode is never PART of the insect’s body. If you destroy the electrode, the insect is still an insect. But imagine instead you spliced genes into to the insect’s body, so the insect no longer is an insect. It is now whatever that combination causes this new entity to be – a Knight Radiant, perhaps. (Or a Greatshell or Ryshadium?) That’s the difference between “carrying” investiture and bonding with investiture. Odium can only cause the former. Why Desolations impair Odium’s capacity to free himself from Greater Roshar. Humans are more susceptible to Odium’s influence than native Rosharans and better serve Odium’s purposes. Honor and Cultivation periodically need to “prune” their numbers (and also destroy other Voidbringers). Who Odium began the cycle. He created war on other planets to drive humans to Roshar. (WoB confirms that “the races are more distinct [on Roshar] and rub each other the wrong way…”) Once there, they committed genocide against listeners, wreaking “Desolation” upon them. In order to fight Odium (and incidentally to protect the listeners), Honor offered the Oathpact to the Heralds: fight for Honor against Voidbringers, who then mostly included Odium-influenced humans. Otherwise, Honor would annihilate ALL of Roshar’s humans if necessary to defeat Odium. At some point, Odium figured out how to influence listeners, and the Desolations lost their racial character. During the Vorin period, the original nature of Desolations was ignored, forgotten or deliberately reversed. How Roshar’s Physical Realm gaseous investiture – Stormlight – consists of equal amounts of each Shard’s investiture. Desolations begin when an “investiture imbalance” develops in Stormlight. Spren count as investiture. Honor made each Herald’s soul into an “identity spren” residing in an Honorblade. The Honorblades both monitor and consume investiture. When the imbalance develops, the spren emerges and bonds with a Stone Shaman, current keepers of the Blades. That Shaman-now-Herald signals the Desolation. When the Desolation ends, the Honorblade consumes the Herald’s identity spren, returning it to the Blade. Otherwise, the presence of the identity spren itself causes an investiture imbalance that would lead to a new Desolation, as Brandon has said. Desolations end when the Honorblades sweep Roshar clean of unbonded investiture, including spren. I speculate that the Stone Shamans are the “current” Honorblade keepers because they are somehow related to Talenal, the one Herald who remained “true” (because he “died”). I don’t know whether Heralds had squires or whether some KR from each order attended to their patron Herald. But the Stone Shamans represent Talenal, whom Taravangian describes as the “Ancient of Stone” and whom Nale describes (IMO) as the “Spren of Stone.” IMO if other Heralds had “died,” there would be additional Keepers of the Blades. Next Unlike Desolations, the Everstorm IS of Odium’s design. It brings on the True Desolation (the destruction of most of Roshar) and the Night of Sorrows, when the Everstorm reaches Urithiru, blocking both daylight and Stormlight. That’s the basics. Before you take aim, please make sure you’re wearing your orange vests… AND HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND!

Hi there, This is my first post so it might have already been covered, if so thats my bad. It covers a few of the books so feel free to correct me if it is contradicted somewhere or if you have things to add. I was thinking about how Odium splintered the shard of Honor. I think that the honorblades that the Heralds wielded are actually the remnants of what is left of the shard of honor. This is why they can grant magically abilities to someone who previously could not access magic on Roshar. Also I wonder if they were all collected if they could reforge the Shard of Honor. If this is true then it would mean that the shards of Devotion and Dominion would have items that were made from their remnants. Brandon has said that the Aons inside of the Seons are splinters of Devotion so what are the splinters of Dominion? Also what would happen if a splinter of Devotion, a Seon, and a splinter of Honor, an honorblade, were combined like when Sazed combined the shards of Ruin and Preservation in the Mistborn series?

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” - W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming,” 1919 I recently started a topic asserting the Heralds are identity spren and that the Honorblades are Voidbinding fabrials. (I’ll get around to explaining more about Voidbinding in another post. It is NOT associated with Voidbringing, however.) I posited that, when it’s time for a Desolation, the identity spren search Roshar for temperamentally-suitable hosts to bond with. This last idea needs revision. It seems unlikely the spren would search Roshar for a new host. I can’t see Taln’s spren flitting from Shinovar to Kholinar before bonding with someone. And where’s the Blade in the meantime? I know Syl searched everywhere for Kaladin, but making sure you inform the world that a Desolation is imminent seems a different order of magnitude than finding an honorable man. (Is Syl Diogenes?) I theorize that the main purpose of the Stone Shamans is to be Heralds-in-waiting (and to recover the Honorblades). They train with the Honorblades, learn how to use the Blades’ Surgebinding abilities, and learn other martial arts. Comes a Desolation, they’re ready and waiting for the identity spren to choose one of them to bond with. My original theory in the linked post says the Heralds don’t know they’re not human. I’m sticking with that for now. If the Heralds don’t know, then the Shamans probably don’t either; although it’s possible the Shamans do know, and that “becoming a Herald” wipes all such memories away. In either case, the Shaman who will become Taln travels to Kholinar with the Honorblade. Outside the gates, he (or the Blade) does whatever must be done to initiate the bonding process. Pooff! He becomes Taln, complete with the glistening muscles that show the spren just came from Shadesmar. He is confused (love that word) because the “Taln” spren was left unbonded for an extraordinarily long time. Like other spren who bond in the Physical Realm after a long absence, it takes awhile for the Taln spren to reorient itself. (Think of Pattern after a relatively short time.) As of the end of WoR, Taln is better – he remembers “Ishar’s Knights” – but is not yet fully himself. As stated in the other post, I believe the Stone Shamans keep the Honorblades in the mountains east of Shinovar. Not only do the mountains block Stormlight from reaching Shinovar, but the Honorblades suck up any remaining investiture that might otherwise slip through. That’s what keeps Shinovar spren-free. Because the Stone Shamans had not seen a Desolation in 4,500 years, and had not seen a spren in Shinovar in all that time, they came to think Voidbringers were a myth. They may even have bought into Aharietiem. They were normal humans, passing along their knowledge non-magically. (Awaiting the writing of still another post: “Voidbringers” are what Odium’s investiture turns otherwise normal objects/entities into. First Odium “corrupts” (that is, invests) an Adonalsium spren. Then that spren bonds with another object/entity, giving that object sentience and infusing it with Odium’s mandate (intent). The “corrupted” spren in Dalinar’s Purelake vision was itself an Adonalsium spren before it became Odium-invested and created a thunderclast. Stormspren are Odium-invested windspren that turn listeners into Voidbringers; honorspren are Honor-invested windspren.) When Szeth somehow recognized that Voidbringers were real and imminent, he caused an ideological crisis among the Shamans. Their belief system would shatter if Desolations were possible. They had no choice but to banish him as “Truthless.” Nale now tells Szeth to take out the Shamans. This would enable Nale to recover the Honorblades for the true Heralds (that is, the ones the identity spren are still bonded to). It will also prevent the Shamans from wrongly using them, since only the Heralds with all their experience and knowledge will understand how best to use the Blades in the “True Desolation.” Nightblood meets Honorblade. Both suck magic. Place your bets…

It seems strange to me that the Heralds would accept immortality in exchange for eternal torture. I don’t care how “honorable” the Heralds are (and many of them have as much or more Cultivation in them as Honor). No earthly religious figures endured so much over their lifetimes for their beliefs, let alone through eternity. It's just so improbable, even in a work of fantasy fiction. So I sought an alternative explanation consistent with Roshar’s magical and planetary peculiarities. This is what I’ve come up with. 1. The Heralds Are Identity Spren Whoever the original Heralds were, they gave their memories and physical, mental and emotional characteristics (their “Identity”) to Honor to help maintain Odium‘s imprisonment in the Rosharian system. Honor created an “Identity spren” for each Herald and implanted that spren in each Honorblade. When the time comes for a Desolation, each Honorblade seeks a human whose physical characteristics and temperament match their Herald’s “Divine Attributes.” The Honorblade then bonds that person to itself. In other words, the Identity spren/investiture attaches itself to that person’s spirit web at precisely the places necessary to make that person into their Herald. As Syl has noted, the Blade itself is not a spren, but the spren within the Blade chooses a human to bond with. Through this investiture – more than the amount of investiture constituting a RadiantSpren – each bonded Herald acquires his or her non-surgebinding abilities that Brandon has alluded to (Taln’s quickness and hand speed, for example), as well as that Herald’s physical appearance, personality and memories. 2. The Oathpact The Oathpact was the agreement of the Heralds to fight for Honor in exchange for immortality. I believe they did not know how they were made immortal or that it would result in their perceived “torture.” Kalak’s interaction with Jezrien in the WoK Prelude (calling him the “immortal king”) supports this interpretation. Moreover, WEZ313 in an April 2015 post referenced a WoB that purportedly said "the Heralds blamed Honor for what happened to them." 3. The Honorblades Are Voidbinding Fabrials Honor designed the Honorblades to consume investiture, bind the investiture together as Stormlight (“Voidbinding”), and recycle the Stormlight. The Heralds are Voidbinders. Stormlight consists of physical investiture in gaseous form from each of Honor, Cultivation and Odium. It is the balance of the investitures that enables Honor to "bind the Void," and imbalances that cause Desolations. (Many storylines grow from this conclusion, and I’m still working through all the implications. Rather than to go into more about this now, may I say RAFO? 4 . Where the Heralds Go When They Don’t Die The Heralds “go back” following Desolations even when they don’t die because the Honorblades consume and return each Herald’s Identity spren to the corresponding Honorblade. 5. The Heralds’ “Torture” A Herald’s “torture” between Desolations is the Identity spren’s exposure to Odium’s investiture in the re-forging of Stormlight through the Voidbinding process. The Identity spren may or may not participate in this process. The intensity of the intra-Honorblade battle between Honor’s binding and Odium’s divisive investiture is what the Heralds perceive as the daily rendering and regrowth of their “flesh.” (Recall that Stormlight includes Cultivation’s Progression surge, which heals the Heralds from that damage.) 6. Who Is Taln? Taln IS Taln. But the spren that constitutes his identity had been locked inside that Honorblade waaaay longer than it had ever been before. Like other spren, it lost much of its memory and other cognitive characteristics when it transitioned into the Physical Realm. It will take Taln some time to recover himself. (Who now has his Honorblade is another story…) 7. The Stone Shamans Keep the Honorblades in the Mountains East of Shinovar Of the many singular things about Shinovar, most striking is the absence of spren. One reason is that the Stormlight-bearing Highstorms have dissipated by the time they reach the mountains east of Shinovar, and those mountains scrape off however much of the Highstorms remain. I propose an additional reason: the investiture-consuming Honorblades are kept in those mountains. They create a barrier to ensure that no investiture of any kind slips through into Shinovar. (I address why that is in another part of my Theory.) There's a lot more to say, but that's it for now.

So, we know that Szeth hears voices in his head, specifically the voices of people that he killed. However, we don't know what causes them. For quite a long time, I advocated the Yelig-nar theory, but WoB - "Hmm... Szeth has no more of a connection with Yelig-nar than anyone else does." - seems to disprove that. However, I have a super weird theory that might actually fit with what we know about the magic systems in the Cosmere. Basically, I was thinking that it might be Jezrien's Honorblade that is causing Szeth to hear the voices. It's a weird idea, definitely. To look at how that might work, consider Nightblood. Nightblood is, for all intents and purposes, a shardblade made out of endowment splinters (as opposed to Honor splinters), but is partially broken. He - and Syl, for that matter - exhibits the ability to communicate telepathically over fairly decent distances (not sure about distance for Syl in sprenblade form). We also know that when he kills somebody, he absorbs their breaths. That's key. My idea is that the damaging of the oathpact broke, or at least damaged, the 9 herald's honorblades. Szeth hears the voices of the people that he killed because Jezrien's Honorblade has been absorbing their souls, or at least parts of them. That's why Szeth hears the voices. I know that a big hole in the theory is that Szeth doesn't have the honorblade anymore. However, Nightblood can communicate over a fairly large distance, and certain spren and sprenlike creatures can communicate or exert influence over very large areas. For example, unmade have incredible radii of influence, if Nergaoul and the thrill are any indication. And bonds with honorblades are less straightforward than typical spren and shardblades, so he might still be partially tied to it, for all we know. What do you guys think?

So, Elhokar talks about how "they watch him from mirrors" "symbols, twisted, inhuman" So he's seeing cryptics. This could mean several things: #1 Elhokar is becoming a Lightweaver. #2 His blade is the Lightweaver honor blade, which the Cryptics are interested in #3 other reason the cryptics are watching him/ability to see spren otherwise. #4 ….He is insane. Any thoughts?

Per a recommendation, I'm starting a new topic with this theory. THEORY: So, I've been thinking about a lot of stuff, and one theory I had was that Honor's physical manifestation of power on Roshar might actually be the Honorblades themselves. They are kind of hidden in plain sight, and I don't think we know where they came from originally. Honor might give of himself to create something that helps mankind fight the Desolations/Odium. Mistborn spoiler: Also to quote Syl from Chapter 87, page 1045, of Words of Radiance: That might explain why Spren were so interested in copying the Honorblades when making Shardblades. Edit 4/16/2015: Added quote from Syl